Talk:Voter turnout in United States presidential elections/Archive 1

Numbers
Some of the later numbers in the table don't gibe with Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections for some reason. Why is that? Jmj713 (talk) 17:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Graph
Could someone make a graph? By just reading the percentages from top to bottom, it's hard to apprehend the evolution in a glance. Thanks. 84.198.123.112 (talk) 11:08, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Women? Nonwhites? etc.
Unfortunately this article doesn't adequately cite sources or, for years prior to 1960, give the figures entering into the percentages so it is difficult to understand. Footnote says "The voting age population includes all persons age 18 and over as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, which necessarily includes a significant number of persons ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens, felons, and the mentally incompetent." What about women? What about nonwhites? What about nonlandowners? Are they excluded from the "voting age population" for years when they were not permitted to vote? It would appear so since e.g. in 1840 the % turnout was above 80%. Clarification of this would be useful, as would an explanation of why women, nonwhites, and nonlandowners were omitted from the voting age population (assuming they were) while they were ineligible to vote but persons age 18-20 were included for all years.

Also, since when are the mentally incompetent disqualified from the vote? [Insert your own joke about mental incompetence not disqualifying anyone from holding office here.] 24.58.33.52 (talk) 20:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Puzzled by statistics
I am a bit puzzled by the statistics here, and wonder if there could be a more accurate explanation of what they reflect. For instance, the figures suggest that the % of voting-age who voted was pretty constant, from before women could through after the could vote. But clearly, when half of the voting-age population could not vote, turnout %s should be lower. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.235.147.164 (talk) 19:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * It's clearly not counting them. Given the mass disenfranchisement in the 19th century, it's clear that it wasn't counting slaves pre-Civil War and I'm seriously questionable about some of the later decades.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:40, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The table is misleading, Isn't turnout the percentage of actual voters from registered voters not potential eligible voters in their entirety?

Cleanup - Rewrite
This page needs a massive cleanup. The column definitions need to be stated clearly, and we probably need better/more sources. The article and its primary source seem to claim that "%VAP" is % of all voting age people in the country. If this is the case, any number pre-1900s cannot possibly be more than 50% due to the reason stated above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.50.154.220 (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Voter eligibility increases every year except 2012
92.29.18.107 (talk) 11:55, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Number of voting-age citizens voters DOWN in 2012? Really??
On 27 February 2013, an IP added "211,731 thousand" as the number of voting-age citizens in the 2012 election, and that's what this article has shown every since. That would represent a decline of more than 18 million from 2008's "229,945 thousand" voting-age citizens, if both numbers are correct.

That seems impossible, considering that the total U.S. population is estimated to have increased by about 10 million over that period, and other sources indicate that the U.S. adult population increased at a similar amount, and, in fact, that adults made up a slightly larger (not smaller) percentage of the population in 2012.

Perhaps the number of non-citizens has increased slightly, which would affect the census numbers but not the voting-age citizen count. But it can't possibly have increased by 28 million (10 million + 18 million), since that number is higher than the estimates I've seen for the total number of aliens in the USA, legal and illegal combined.

Something's not right about those voting-age citizen numbers! NCdave (talk) 03:51, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Edits to table
I'm going to go ahead and be bold and make some major changes to the table in this article. I'm doing two things:


 * 1) I'm removing the empty rows for the elections from 1789 through 1824, inclusive. We have no data for those years, and the empty rows do nothing. A simple statement in the prose of the article that the years aren't represented in the table due to lack of data will suffice.
 * 2) I'm also going to add two columns to the table, from this reference: the number of registered voters for each election, and what % of the Voting-Age Population they made up. I think those two types of data are relevant to the article because they give a clearer picture of how the number of people in the Voting-Age Population relates to the number who actually vote.

If you disagree with either or both of my changes, feel free to revert and discuss! cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 11:22, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It doesn't appear that you ever made your edit. Are you still planning to do so? NCdave (talk) 03:59, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistent figures?
The graph File:Voter_turnout.png doesn't seem to be based on the same figures as the table on this page - there's no 60% line, but the 2008 turnout looks to be over 60%, whereas the table gives it as 57.1%. The graph is just a PNG and lists no sources, so I can't compare in any more detail. As this graph is now out of date anyway, and gives no sources, it should probably be replaced. TSP (talk) 10:25, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Timeliness
With the primary season wrapping up, and the conventions in another month or two, this is likely going to become a resource for people who are interested in information about historical voter turnout and how that has affected past elections, and how it may affect the current election. I'm just not sure what should go on this page because the title suggests "Come here for very dry statistics in giant tables." Tall Girl (talk) 21:09, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I just wrote an article explaining some of the graphs and placing it all in some historical context. I cobbled it together from web sources and other wikipedia pages, so there may be errors or inaccuracies. Hopefully it's better than the previous version that had charts and nothing else. Shugurim (talk) 21:26, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

registration?!
This article is very confusing and misleading since it doesn't even mention the problem of voter registration. The article keeps using the term "voter turnout" without defining whether it's referring to turnout of eligible voters or of registered voters. --Espoo (talk) 18:08, 19 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Except where it says things like "U.S. presidential election popular vote totals as a percentage of the total U.S. population." and "Voting Age Population (VAP)"? It seems entirely clear to me.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:10, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Chart numbers correct?
According to somewhere I read, Trump had 63M vs Hillary 66M, but that total is nowhere close to the number listed in the chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.206.199.137 (talk) 04:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Unsupported Data in Diagrams
There are no references for the figures in the various charts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:7042:4700:F585:54DF:2183:B0C8 (talk) 09:36, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

inaccurate source
the source given for this quote:

“Only 30 per cent of millennials think it’s ‘essential’ to live in a democracy, compared to 72 percent of those born before World War II” (Gershman, 2018).

could not be found in the journal reference given. at least I could not find it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Melodylingerson (talk • contribs) 05:16, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Age, ambition, and the local charter: A study in voting behavior
This paper has all of two citations in the literature, but it forms the basis for the entire section "Age difference is associated with youth voter turnout." Much of the article seems to suffer from far, far too much focus on a few obscure sources. Deserves a rewrite, and possible a major pairing down to simple statistics from verifiable sources until content up to decent standards is written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.47.168 (talk) 05:39, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Appalling 2nd-hand derobustification of Millennial essentialism
"Only 30 per cent of millennials think it's 'essential' to live in a democracy, compared to 72 percent of those born before World War II" (Gershman, 2018). Considering that one of the critical tenets of liberal democracy is voting, the idea that millennials are denouncing the value of democracy is arguably an indicator of the loss of faith in the importance of voting. Thus, it can be surmised that those of younger ages may not be inclined to vote during elections.

This did not pass the NPOV smell test in the first 1.5 s of flailing around to parse this semantically, so I dug into the source. It appears that Gershman has rather lazily paraphrased the following source material:


 * Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk: The Danger of Deconsolidation — July 2016, Volume 27, Number 3

'When asked  to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how "essential" it is for them "to live in a democracy," 72 percent of those born before World War II check "10," the  highest  value. So do 55 percent of the same cohort in the Netherlands.

But, as Figure  1 shows, the millennial generation has grown much more indifferent. Only one in three Dutch millennials accords maximal importance to living in a democracy; in the United States, that number is slightly lower, around 30 percent.

This is a ludicrous statistic to isolate and highlight out of its original context, as its conflated with so many other methodological parameters. Willingness to answer 10/10 to any question almost certainly tracks education level (negatively), which is now much inflated. It's further amplified by the hysteria of the day, such as pervasive "Cold War" media rhetoric. It's probably also confounded by the centrality of media narratives (much decreased, very rapidly, of late).

Finally, isolating extremist answers is dubious from start to finish, and always has been. Way back in the 1970s, the NPOV smell that emanates from extremist statistical vivisection—arrant derobustification—was immediately apparent to all critical thinkers.

The false and dire impression this gives the passing Wikipedia reader is simply not to be tolerated. It is kind of true as a free-standing factoid, but it's a free-standing factoid more designed to deceive than to illuminate, and ought to be last in line for being quoted in this sloppy manner. At least frame it as done properly in the "my bold" text above. &mdash; MaxEnt 19:59, 31 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Agreed, this entire article is non-neutral. It reads like original research and needs a fundamental overhaul to be encyclopedic.
 * It is also sloppily cited, with most of the article using footnote citations but one section of the article having parenthetical citations (except without the actual sources in the source list, so it's impossible for someone else to go in and quickly clean up the citations). I'm going to tag that section as in need of cleanup. But the article's issues are deeper because it is written in a biased manner. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 16:46, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Some of the sources were in the reference list, so I'm trying to go in and change everything to footnote citations to at least make the citations consistent across the article. I don't have time to fix the whole article, so I welcome another editor coming in to make everything footnote citations in that section. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 17:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing and neutrality
Hello, I am going to be working on some editing on the article. I will be working on the sourcing and references of this article and the neutrality (starting with the age, education and income section and hopefully making a start on the rest). I have looked at previous comments here a see that many people share the sentiment that the neutrality of the article is questionable and that the sourcing should be consistent. You should see my edits popping up within the next few weeks, and if anyone else if interested/following this page feel free to comment or advise if you don't agree with the way the edits are going. MJMD5 (talk) 13:55, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have also found that the setup of the article could be clearer, I will be creating one main category of "factors affecting voter turnout" with the different demographic factors affecting as sub sections MJMD5 (talk) 20:29, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Non-voters
Non-voters are eligible voters but do/did not vote. Could someone please add to the existing charts the number/percentage of non-voters. I see there is some info but if it were reiterated in the other charts, what could be considered a type of voter suppression, would be emphasized. This is an important data point and should be emphasized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.20.106.29 (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

General remarks on sourcing
Large sections are single sourced or not sourced at all. Claims about voter attitudes toward democracy, etc., are peripheral, yet provocative, and demand alternate sourcing. Not asking anyone else to rewrite anything, so much as bookmarking for future attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.47.168 (talk) 05:29, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Original Research?
Aren't all the figures about voting, turnout, etc. in this article original research? I don't have time to independently verify that all the data points are accurately rendered in the figures, yet these figures could be widely used by students and journalists who might assume they are accurate.

Wouldn't it be better to use figures created by actual political scientists, with appropriate references and permissions? Aroundthewayboy (talk) 17:10, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Current Situation
Wouldn't it be better if we added some content about how it is trying to be changed, and the campaigns being held about voter participation? Also the expected situation of 2020 Elections can be added I think. -Beril gur (talk) 08:20, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The top chart is likely to be the first thing many visitors to this page consult, but I'm not sure how useful it is. Seems misleading to compare the popular vote totals to total population since the percentage of the population under 18 (or 21 when the voting age was higher) varies from year to year as baby booms ebb and flow. A more useful chart might include lines for each class that was admitted to the electorate so that the expansions of voting rights to non-landowning men, to black men, to women, and to 18-year-olds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.51.74.169 (talk) 11:41, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Voting Eligible population shrunk by about 5 million in 2016?
The chart seems to be saying that the Voting Eligible population was 235,248,000 in 2012, but only 230,931,921 in 2016? Or, did you switch from VAP to VAP for the last two elections? - user formerly known as ileanadu 2601:14A:503:64C0:9527:27DC:DE40:42F1 (talk) 23:58, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks like the table is mixing two data sources. Pre-2016 is coming from the U.S. Census Bureau source (#22) and 2016-2020 are coming from the UCSB American Presidency Project (#23). Might be a good idea to break them into different columns by source for comparison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.155.118 (talk) 22:23, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

It's very confusing, and the conspiracy theories out there only cause for more confusion. I don't understand the sources of each data, can someone please make this more understandable? 82.166.97.26 (talk) 08:12, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Rename to Voter turnout in United States presidential elections
I'm not a native speaker, but I feel that the "the" in the title is unidiomatic. For similar titles without a "the", see List of United States presidential election results by state, List of United States presidential elections by Electoral College margin, List of United States presidential elections by popular vote margin. If there are no objections in the next couple of days, I'll rename the page. -- Chrisahn (talk) 00:52, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Chrisahn (talk) 16:00, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 November 2020
In the turnout statistics section in the table the first column actually states VAP (Voting Age Population) up through the year 2012 and then for the years 2016 and 2020 it states VEP (Voting Eligible Population). -->

69.40.117.122 (talk) 14:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  Seagull123  Φ  16:14, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 November 2020
VEP percentages don't reflect the source. Someone used VAP percentages for some years and VEP for others. For example, 2008 VEP says 57.1% when in fact that is the VAP for 2008. According to source [23] "Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections: 1828-2008" says 2008 VEP was 61.6%. 2601:58C:4201:2400:ACB2:4AF1:5001:287F (talk) 12:57, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  Seagull123  Φ  16:14, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Turnout of VEP
As someone who was unfamiliar with the concept of VAP and VEP, the listed turnout numbers were misleading to me. Suggestion: list turnout of VAP, or more clearly mark what the values mean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kopoldius (talk • contribs) 16:00, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I corrected the numbers to VEP for 2016 and 2020, but there may be many other mistakes. VAP and VEP are not the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.207.185 (talk) 18:11, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

The table seems wrong. The last column is listed as turnout as a % of VEP but it's actually turnout as a % of VAP. You can tell if you go to the UC Santa Barbara site that's cited. I suggest changing that column name, leaving the numbers (except 2016 which is of VEP and should be fixed) and then replace the VEP number column with the VAP numbers from the UCSB site. Or expand the table to match the one at that site. Volcycle (talk) 04:33, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 November 2020 (2)
Under section "Turnout Statistics": Under column "% turnout of VEP": Change 2008 VEP from 57.1% to 61.6%. 2601:58C:4201:2400:ACB2:4AF1:5001:287F (talk) 20:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Semi-protection-unlocked.svg Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. --TheImaCow (talk) 06:02, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Turnout percentage
This looks like it is including all over 18 years old in the U.S. People with a felony and I think those in jail are not allowed to vote. So I don't believe these are correct. Carina308 (talk) 01:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): CarmideA.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Commented out clearly inaccurate data in "Turnout statistics" section
The data in the "Turnout statistics" section was copied from a source that accurately describes the limitations of the data, just one of which is the exclusion of women from the "voting age population" until at least 1920. The statistics presented in this article, without those caveats, are clearly inaccurate, so I have boldly commented them out. I would not be surprised if better statistics exist, such as those (presumably) used to construct the line graph at the top of the page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:33, 3 February 2022 (UTC)